Life Update

WHAT'S UP EVERYONE!!!! ✨ Happy November! ✨ Despite how often I say this, I'll say it again: I can't BELIEVE how quickly the past month has flown by. I just want to reiterate how much your support means to me. I never take it for granted. You inspire me to keep creating music and content. I'm so thankful for all of you and want to send a big WELCOME to all our new Patrons! ❤️ 

There's been a LOT happening in my life lately - both good and not-so-good. I'll focus on the good first! I just got back from an Oklahoma trip where I saw the Old Blood Noise Endeavors team (and met Robert Keeley for the first time!!). I got a shop tour from Keeley and we had a blast chatting about all things pedal-related. We may have filmed a little bit as well...but you'll have to stay tuned for that!

While I was in Oklahoma, I got to visit my all-time favorite restaurant Pho Cuong. I always get the Pho Ga and it's honestly my favorite comfort food. I also got to visit Elemental Coffee and I must say, if anyone lives near the OKC area you HAVE to try their Blueberry Matcha! They also have one of the best salted chocolate chip cookies and their cafe area is such a great place to sit and write.

My friend Joey from OBNE told me about a Steam game called Brotato  which I am now kind of obsessed with!! It's a game similar to Vampire Survivors and Army of Ruin. What I like about it is that you can just kind of sit down and play for short periods of time without a lot of commitment. So in-between filming scenes at OBNE, I would just boot up Brotato and play a few waves during the down time.

Another game Joey told me about is called Darkwood, which is a horror game that looks RIGHT up my alley. I recently bought an Xbox X Series and I tried playing Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, but I'm literally only about 30 minutes into that game and I haven't fully decided how I feel about it yet. A game I HIGHLYYYY recommend playing on Xbox is Party Animals (currently 40% off on Steam!!) -- I played this game with my best friend and we ended up crying laughing. It's a couch co-op game which I feel like is a little rare these days and it's been a long time since I cried laughing during a video game!

A decent horror book I read recently is called The Eyes Are The Best Part, which is a title I saw a few weeks ago in a bookstore while I was in upstate New York (Rhinebeck) for the Sheep and Wool Festival. The book was pretty good up until the ending, which was unrealistic and felt forced / rushed. Speaking of my Rhinebeck trip, I booked an AirBNB in an RV for it because I thought it would be quaint and adventurous (and AVAILABLE, because I didn't realize how packed the Sheep and Wool Festival gets every year and I waited too long to book lodging....!) and when I arrived to the RV, it smelled like mold, had carpet all around the shower area, and there were three little mouse poops on the bed 🤢 I reached out to the AirBNB Host and said, "hey, uhhhhh, there are mice droppings on the bed here..." and he responded: "Yeah, that's normal. The animals like the warmth. Once you make some noise and stay in there for a while they will go away."

💀💀💀

(needless to say, I contacted AirBNB support and got a refund)

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I've been doing a lot of traveling lately, which is partly why I really haven't been able to blog much. The other reason is because, unfortunately, I've been experiencing a lot of sickness and death in my personal life. I debated sharing this information on social media, and ultimately decided against it, but I feel comfortable blogging about it here for those of you who want to know.

If this is too sad, please feel free to skip this last section.

I lost my very best friend almost exactly a month ago from today and I cried so hard my eyelids were swollen and purple. I have never felt such a profound loss like this one. Cathy was my aunt, so she's known me my whole life, but she was also the person I worked with for over 40 hours a week for 10 years. I was her "Support Staff" for a program made for people with disabilities and it was seriously the best job in the whole world. We always went everywhere together -- to the library, the movie theater, Dave & Busters, etc. and she was the friendliest, happiest person I've ever met. It feels impossible to summarize her, but I'll say this: she would talk to EVERYONE, and she would always offer you a roll of Smarties, Reeses, or whatever candy she had in her purse at the time. And she LOVED Halloween. On Halloween this year, I was able to eat exactly 1 Reeses cup before bawling my eyes out.

I am SO lucky that I made it to the Hospice center in time so I could hold her hand, talk to her, and tell her how loved she was as she passed. This was the first time in my life that I was present during a death and although I basically had to be carried out of that Hospice center afterwards, I feel so, so grateful that I was there with her. She was by far the most beautiful person I've ever known and my heart hurts every day without her.

Another thing that's been hitting me hard is the anniversary of my younger brother's death. My brother had a rare condition called Tay-Sachs Disease and he passed when he was six-and-a-half years old. Even though that happened over 20 years ago, November is always hard for me. Now with Cathy's passing last month, I have a feeling that the annual transition into the winter will forever be a difficult time for me. But, when I get sad like this I remember a beautiful quote from Anne Lamott that has helped me cope with losing loved ones:

“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.”

❤️❤️❤️